In its 2024 annual report, the federal judiciary highlighted funding concerns and possible shortfalls ahead of the expiration later this week of a governmental funding stopgap. It also discussed its continued calls for more judgeships following former President Joe Biden’s December 2024 veto of a bill that would have added more than 130 new judgeships.
Last year, the 30,000-person workforce focused on the branch’s modernization efforts, according to the opening message of the report by Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr., director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
Conrad went on to note that the Vulnerability Management Program, a security program for judges and families of judges, is now fully implemented. Since it began in 2022, the office has assisted judges and their families with removing information posted online that could threaten their safety. Conrad noted that last year, the program provided services to 1,731 judges, 114 retired judges and 235 family members of judges.
Late last year, the office committed roughly $60.5 million to increase security at more than 60 facilities. Security measures included window replacements and reinforcements and the installation of roll-down doors.
Around $5 million was transferred to the Federal Protective Service “for temporary fencing that can be used on the perimeter of court facilities when needed for high-profile trials or periods of civil unrest,” Conrad wrote.
Conrad also reported the federal judiciary has made progress on the multi-year modernization of the electronic case management system, something that’s been underway since 2022. The new system is slated to replace the aging Case Management/Electronic Case Filing, or CM/ECF, system.
Funding and Courts
Last February, the judiciary’s initial fiscal year 2025 budget request was $9.36 billion in discretionary appropriations. In June, the judiciary submitted a revised budget estimate for $9.22 billion, a 6.8% increase over the fiscal 2024 request. But it was $142 million less than the initial request.
The report states that the majority of the requested increase was needed to maintain current operations. The judiciary stated in the report that the rest of the budget request was needed to address priority matters like physical and cybersecurity security protections. Some of the budget would allow courts to hire additional staff in clerks of court, probation and pretrial services and federal defender offices.
The federal judiciary’s funding is nested in the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill each year.
The U.S. House approved a version of the bill last June that was $412 million below the fiscal 2025 request, while the Senate’s version, which was approved in committee in August, provided the branch with $8.82 billion — still around $396 million below the request from the judiciary.
In November, the judiciary sent Congress another budget reestimate while the two chambers were in conference discussions over the final appropriations bill. It asked for $9.02 billion and expressed concern about the funding levels for the Judicial Conference Budget Committee.
The annual appropriations bills for fiscal 2025 weren’t enacted before the Oct. 1, 2024 deadline. A continuing resolution was enacted to keep the government operating through Dec. 20, 2024, which was later extended to March 14.
A majority of the funding, around $6.23 billion, would go toward salaries and expenses like IT. Around $1.58 billion would go to defender services and $797 million would be for court security.
According to the annual report, the number of cases has grown significantly since enactment of the last comprehensive judgeship legislation in 1990.
“Since then, district court filings have increased by more than 35 percent,” the report states. “It was the longest period Congress had gone without authorizing new permanent district court judgeships since the district courts were created in 1789.” The bipartisan bill Biden vetoed on Dec. 23, 2024 would have created 66 new district judgeships, 63 new permanent judgeships and three new temporary judgeships.